A special postal cancellation, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Salt Lake Temple, was issued April 6 by the U.S. Postal Service in the North Visitors Center on Temple Square.
The one-day cancellation, sponsored by the Utah Philatelic Organization, includes the originalpostmark used the day of the temple dedication on April 6, 1893, with the year changed to 1993. In addition to the postmark, the souvenir pictorial cancellation included a design of the temple and the wording: "100 years 1893-1993, Salt Lake Temple Centennial Station 84101."
The First Presidency was presented a framed limited edition of the cancellation. In a brief meeting in the Church Administration Building on April 6, officials of the philatelic organization and the Postal Service made the presentation to President Gordon B. Hinckley and President Thomas S. Monson, counselors in the First Presidency.
Presenting the limited edition cancellation were Albert J. Regenthal, president of the Utah Philatelic Organization; Allen Wood, vice president; Ronald Sphar, secretary-treasurer; Michael Sullivan, past president; and Karen Young from the Postal Service who was event coordinator for the cancellation.
The framed pictorial cancellation included an 81/2 by 11-inch sheet with a block of four Golden Spike stamps issued in 1944 and a block of four Utah Centennial stamps issued in 1947, plus a strip of five stamps commemorating the Conestoga covered wagon of the 1800s. The covered wagon is similiar to the wagons used by the pioneers in their trek west. Also a part of the limited edition print was a cachet envelope with a Utah Centennial stamp, the Conestoga wagon stamp and a stamp honoring the lunch wagons of the 1890s.
The Utah Philatelic Organization also made available to the public 6,000 cachet envelopes with the cancellation, which was designed by Leon Burrows, a Salt Lake graphic illustrator and artist.
The temple anniversary cancellation is the first of a series of centennial cancellations planned by the philatelic organization. The final one will be in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Utah statehood in 1996.
"We wanted something special to commemorate the centennial of the temple dedication," Regenthal said as the reason his organization approached the Salt Lake District of the Postal Service for approval of the cancellation.
